romeo & juliet

A Grim Fairy Tale – Part 4

There are six reasons why embryonic stem cells will never make it out of the lab and into the bodies of sick Americans.

Reason 4: Real Scientists really prefer to research Adult Stem Cells.

It’s kind of the “Field of Dreams” branch of science based on the hypothesis that “if you build it, they will come.” How well does that work? Just ask ES Cell International (ESI), a company established in 2000 in Singapore, which was the most embryonic- stem-cell-friendly country in the world.

ESI built tremendous facilities and gave jobs to almost any Western ESC researcher who wanted one. But, in 2007, down hundreds of millions of dollars, they did what Wall Street did in 2000 – they chucked embryonics into the trash bin as “unworkable.”

Alan Colman, ESI’s chief executive at the time of its demise, reasoned that “the likelihood of having products in the clinic in the short term was vanishingly small” and admitted to “a tinge of disappointment.”

Or, just ask Dr. Colin McGuckin, until recently a professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University (U.K.) and one of Europe’s leading embryonic researchers. He left Newcastle for France where the research atmosphere is much more receptive to adult stem cell research. It was reported by Times Higher Education that when leaving, McGuckin claimed that “A vast amount of money in the UK from the Government has gone into embryonic stem-cell research with not one patient being treated [italics added], to the detriment of (research into) adult stem cells, which has been severely underfunded.”

Take the recent case in California, which had almost $300 million of stem cell funding to distribute, but no researcher worthy of receiving it. Not surprisingly, the money went to powerful and well-connected friends to build new facilities to “attract scientists.” As Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels might have said 75 years ago, “Once you have “them” believing the Big Lie, you can get away with anything.” In this case, sell “them” cures which will never come and give the money to your friends.